Other people’s dreams are never interesting…except when they’re about love and sex. Each week, our dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tells one lucky reader what their dirty dream means. This week, a reader asks Lauri:

I had a dream where I woke up from a deep sleep to find a woman going down on me. Suddenly I am having the most intense screaming orgasm. Immediately after, I break into tears because I had an intimate encounter with someone else when I love my boyfriend so much. The woman is confused as to why I am so upset, saying “You asked me to do this. What did you expect?” At this point in the dream, I realize she is a prostitute whom I had hired. I then spend the rest of the dream running around a huge house (the brothel, I guess) trying to find my boyfriend, while trying to make sure no one else in the house sees me. But I never find my boyfriend.

That is when I wake up — well I am woken up by my boyfriend making too much noise as he’s getting ready for work. Normally I tell him about my dreams when they’re particularly weird, but I was too ashamed of this dream to tell him about it. I still haven’t and I’m almost haunted by it. I love my boyfriend more than anything, and we’ve even talked about getting married after grad school. What could this dream mean?

Lauri: We often get upset by our dreams because we take them literally. Keep in mind that your dreams are coming from a different part of your mind (the subconscious) than your literal thoughts come from (the conscious), therefore they speak a different language. The subconscious speaks in a language of emotions, pictures and metaphors. That being said, let’s look at the emotions, pictures and metaphors in your dream and see if we can’t connect them to your waking life.

You are feeling sadness and regret in the dream. What were you upset about or regretting in real life at that time? You are also fearful that someone in the dream would see you. What were you afraid someone in real life might find out about you? It may not necessarily be a big secret; it could also be thoughts, feelings or an opinion you were keeping to yourself.

Now let’s look at the pictures or imagery in your dream. Someone going down on you. Well, in dream life oral sex is actually about communication. Did you have a conversation with someone that you initiated but came to regret? And now for the metaphors. In the beginning of the dream you wake up. That is a metaphor for having an awakening or realization in real life. At the time of this dream, what bit of information or fact did you “wake up to?” Maybe that a conversation you had was a bad idea? The prostitute is a metaphor for you selling yourself short or not giving yourself enough value. And trying to find your boyfriend is a metaphor for you trying to find out “where he’s at” psychologically. So again, take your mind back to a week ago when you had this dream and see if you can connect any of the above to what was going on in your life as well as in your mind.

It seems to me that you may have said something you regret, something that you felt really good about — at first — (the orgasm) but later made you worry that you came across badly and is now causing you to wonder where your BF is on the issue. It also seems to me another, more carefully thought out, conversation is in order.

Dreamer’s response: Thanks Lauri! I talked about the dream with a friend, and she thought that I was just really nervous about my relationship and how everything seems to be going so well. I’ve been in unhealthy relationships before, so has my boyfriend. He and I will often talk about how surprised we are to be so happy together and how it’s almost weird not to have negativity or fights in our relationship. I just remember waking up from that dream feeling so horrible about betraying his trust and being intimate with someone else, even though it was in a dream.

Your comments that I’m selling myself short make sense. Maybe I don’t feel that I deserve something so good in my life, and I’m waiting for something — or me — to mess it up. I finally told my boyfriend about it, and he just hugged me and told me he loved and trusted me, and that if I ever have another bad dream to just talk to him about it. He’s so awesome! Thanks again.